318 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



It is in South Africa that the passing of the 

 wild has most extensively been accomplished 

 under the eyes of men still living. What a 

 spectacle must have met the eyes of the great 

 hunter Cornwallis Harris, who, in the year 

 1836, only three-quarters of a century ago, 

 actually shot springbok on the road between 

 Graaf Reinet and Grahamstown, and who on 

 one occasion saw so many quaggas, wildebeest 

 and hartebeest that he described the face of the 

 country as chequered black and white with the 

 moving herds, and calculated that he could 

 not be looking at less than fifteen thousand 

 head of game ! What of the Transvaal to-day? 

 The elephant, rhinoceros and eland are gone, 

 exterminated for the most part by the Boers. 

 There was every excuse for the way in which 

 they slaughtered wild animals during the war, 

 for they must often have been hard pressed 

 for food. Those, however, who best know the 

 Boer hunters in time of peace declare that they 

 have no sense of honour or spirit of sport, but 

 evade every game law the moment they are 

 out of sight of a policeman, slaying wantonly 

 like wild dogs, and camping close to the 

 Portuguese border, so that they can escape 

 from justice, from whichever side of it detec- 

 tion comes. It was the Boers, too, who 

 destroyed all the once-abundant game of Natal, 

 trekking after meat in the foothills of the 



